Upper Canada's Loyalist Establishment Defends Its Right to Property in Slaves

There was the Loyalist establishment. Its members, recent immigrants to the province, were naturally jealous of their property rights as British citizens, having forfeited practically everything in their defence of the crown in the late Revolutionary War. They were in no rush to deprive themselves of valuable property they regarded as essential to their economic viability in the colony.

--Michael Power, "Simcoe and Slavery," in Slavery and Freedom in Niagara, ed. Curtis Fahey (Niagara-on-the-Lake, ON: The Niagara Historical Society, 2000), 9.